Billericay and Wickford District 5-a-side Football Tournament

 Saturday 25th June 2005 saw the annual District Scout Football Tournament take place.

1st Ramsden and Downham Scouts have won this tournament twice before in 1999 and 2000, but this was the first time we had entered a team since 2002 due to our low numbers of Scouts during the last 3 years.

This years tournament was held at the Willowbrook Sports Ground, home of the Billericay Rugby Club and Billericay St. John's Cricket Club who had allowed us to use their outfield for this tournament.

    Click on this link to see the photographs from the tournament.

1st Ramsden and Downham had been drawn in Group 1 for the initial qualifying tournament along with:

• 1st Stock
• 4th Billericay (Viking)
• 6th Billericay Methodist (Tornados)

This gave us some early thoughts - 1st Stock had also won the tournament twice previously, but they had not competed for a while, 4th Billericay's Troop is only one year old so they would have a young team and possibly a small team whereas 6th Billericay are a well established Troop with a large number of older Scouts.

Everyone assembled at 9.00am (although Tau had not reset his alarm clock following the power cut and thunderstorm the previous evening so he assembled at 9.15 - looking like he had just woken up!)

Stock had not turned up, so we were left in a 3 team mini-league.

Match 1: 4th Billericay (Viking) vs 6th Billericay Methodist (Tornados)

This match saw two outstanding performances for 1st Ramsden and Downham - Matthew had been loaned to 4th Billericay (Viking) as their 5th player and Keith did an outstanding job as the referee.

The match was a close fight - 6th Billericay looked the stronger team, but 4th Billericay had a good defence and their Goalkeeper pulled off and outstanding fingertip save which saw them level at 0-0 at half time.

The second half continued in the same manner - 6th Billericay seemed to have more of the possession and 4th Billericay were still defending like lions. But it was the Tornados who took the lead mid way through the second period and then held on for a comfortable 1-0 win.

Match 2: 4th Billericay (Viking) vs 1st Ramsden and Downham

After there epic battle with the Tornados, 4th Billericay had one match under their belt but they knew that if they lost again they would not make the semi-finals.

1st Ramsden and Downham started with Gareth in goal, Daniel and James in Defence and Thomas and George as attackers.

The first half started with some end-to-end play with both teams trying to get the upper hand. A mistake on the right side saw Ramsden and Downham have a defensive throw in. Sadly, we saw the problem of not playing 5-a-side football for a long time and a misunderstanding of the throw-in rule saw the ball end up in the possession of 4th Billericay. They tried a speculative shot - which saw a good save by Gareth. However, we had not learned from our throw in mistake 30 seconds earlier and with the illegal (in 5-a-side football) throw out by the keeper saw the referee reluctantly awarding a penalty to 4th Billericay.

After a few seconds when the referee reminded our team about the rules, the penalty was driven into the top right hand corner with aplomb, leaving Gareth - who had correctly guessed the direction of the kick. Half-time soon followed with few discussions about tactics for the second half.

The second half started as the first half had - with 4th Billericay attacking and 1st Ramsden and Downham trying to re-build after their set back. Sadly, a corner mid way through the second half, saw 4th Billericay extend their lead. 1st Ramsden and Downham's attacking necessity meant that their right sided defence was out of position which lead to Gareth pulling the ball from the back of his net again, despite the fact that he had no chance of stopping the second goal.

With only 30 seconds remaining, 4th Billericay held on for a well deserved victory, even though their second goal was somewhat unfortunate.

Match 3: 6th Billericay Methodist (Tornados) vs 1st Ramsden and Downham

The final match of the group meant the 1st Ramsden and Downham need a large victory to ensure their progression to the knock-out stages.

The match started with James replacing Gareth in goal and Matthew returning from his loan spell with 4th Billericy to replace Daniel in defence.

The first half saw 6th Billericay continue to exude the confidence that their first victory against the Vikings had given them and they scored early in the first half.

Then the shout "Come on Ramsden" saw the arrival of the footballing Maestro who is known as Mr.41.

Perhaps the arrival of a Martian unsettled the 6th Billericay defence. But mid way through the half, the best move of the match, taking the ball from a defensive throw-in on the right wing, through 6 passes so that the ball ended at George's feet in the Inside Left position (for those of you less than 50 years of age, ask Q about Stanley Matthew's brilliance in the inside left position in the days of silent movies and rationing!)

Their goalkeeper was left looking baffled as the ball screamed from George's left foot and the back of the net bulged, the crowd went mad and 1st Ramsden and Downham suddenly felt that they could win.

The drop ball restart was won by 1st Ramsden and Downham and the ball found itself once again to George. The result was the same and the match had been turned on its head within 30 seconds.

The only trouble was, a 2-1 victory would still mean that we would need to score again. Tau, who at that point had finally woken up, was trying to do the mental arithmetic in is head, was talking to Mr. 41 (who is just mental in his head)

A change mid way through the second half saw James come out of goal. The attacking play continued but it was not enough and a few minutes after the final whistle saw the tournament organisers confirm Tau's worst fears: we were out.

The Final Group Table

6th Billericay and 4th Billericay continued into the semi-finals where they played 3rd Billericay (Orion) and

1st Ramsden and Downham continued to a series of friendly matches against 5th Billericay (St. John's) and 1st Runwell (Brownsea)

With 4th Billericay having made it to the semi-finals, they needed an extra player to make up their 5-a-side team. Matthew had gone home so George was substituted from the friendly with 5th Billericay so that he could help the Viking Team reach the final.

Sadly, with all of 1st Ramsden and Downham's supporters now cheering on the only team that beat us, 4th Billericay were not strong enough to overcome 3rd Billericay (Orion). So George and Matthew left with Silver medals for finishing in the runners-up position.

Finally, we need to thank Anne and Steve for organising the tournament - and especially for Roger did all the hard work in the organising.

Date Updated: 04 March 2006